Gus Van Sant on "Milk's" long journey to the screen

By Douglas Perry, The Oregonian

November 24, 2008, 10:38AM

It has been years since Gus Van Sant, the acclaimed filmmaker who calls Portland home, has made a movie as straightforwardly accessible as "Milk." After winning an Oscar nomination for the 1997 crowd-pleaser "Good Will Hunting," Van Sant has largely pursued his own singular vision. With such films as "Elephant" and "Paranoid Park," both shot in Portland, Van Sant stepped away from conventional narratives, creating a style that embraced understatement, poetic visuals and experimental storytelling focused on youthful, inarticulate characters.

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